REZZ Boxes, advantages?

Client-lag is immaterial to the discussion at hand.

There is a world of difference between SIM-lag and CLIENT-lag.

Client-lag is measured in FPS, yes.

Sim-lag is measured in Time Dilation. This is the difference between what you are seeing and what is really happining. More commonly (and simply) refered to as "ping".

Time Dilation of 1.00 to .99 is normal for any sim. Even with 40 or so agents in it. When it drops below .95 is where issues start. Below .80 is very bad. Anything below .65 is where the HUGE freezes begin with most clients interfacing with that sim. If, at any time, your TD drops below .98, someting in the sim is effecting it. As temp-rezzers fire every 60 seconds, a drop every 60 seconds points to them being the culprit.

~Jessy

I wish I could tell you the details of my system, Daniel, but I can tell you a sort of overview. The computer is about 3 years old and was up to spec at the time. It has 1 meg memory, and a cheapish nVidea card.

You are correct Yosef, but the only times when prims ran out, were when a tenant had overdone their allowance by a long way. I'm saying that a sim's prims rarely run out when temp rezzers are used, and it's true in my experience.

I used the fps at the top of the Statistics bar - whichever that is. I think it's viewer - I see a sim fps below. I'll do the same and check if that figure changes significantly.

The sim FPS is mostly ~43, and occasionally drops to ~37 for a second. It doesn't drop at all during the rezzing, but I thought that maybe the number is a little in arrears, so I checked when the drops occured in relation to the rezzing, and there is no pattern. So something else must cause the brief drops. I have to conclude that the 3 temp rezzers have no real effect of the sim's FPS.

The prim count in "About Land" does count both, but that's not a whole lot of help since you still have to know to check each parcel's prim count.

Someone will try to rez something, get the "Sim is full" pop-up, they'll look at "About Land", try a few more times and then complain to their landlord. The landlord will arrive on the parcel, noticing that yes indeed there are free prims so there shouldn't be any problem rezzing prims.

If at that point you don't know that you should check the sim's total prim count with the help of the Statistics Bar then there's seemingly no obvious cause. You'd restart the sim since you can sometimes get that error even when everything is perfect, but that wouldn't help in this case.

If they do think to check each parcel's prim count (plenty of people don't) they'll eventually notice one parcel is over the limit but that still doesn't really explain anything by itself (plenty of people don't know or forget to consider the sim's hard limit). They could start returning prims until the parcel is within its limits and notice that that solves the problem but they still wouldn't have a clue why.

You can reason your way through the entire problem and come up with the real reason why the sim is seemingly acting up all on your own, but it's obscure enough that you can't blame anyone for not knowing without being told.

(It gets even worse when the sim is using the "object bonus" multiplier since that can cause the exact same problem all on its own)

It *always* takes away from other people's (free) prim allowance. The only time that becomes an obvious problem is when the sim is pretty much full.

There have been two posts about this exact problem in "Technical Issues" just recently, I don't find it that "rare" considering how few people actively use the forums to seek help.

But then I'm sure that those people would have been a lot more understanding if they had only known that since their issue is rare that it's perfectly alright for others to use their free prim allotment up .

Well, even with only using the client-side FPS as you did, a drop of 4-5fps is still bad. You might not think so, because you're simply standing there, but 4-5fps out of the 34fps max you were getting is around a 11-12% loss.

I, personally, do not think a 11% loss is acceptable.

btw, I'm not saying that it's your rezzers are the ONLY cause of that loss. Seldom is any one thing in a sim the result of any poor performance. Usually it's a combination of a lot of things. It's simply good policy to try to reduce the amount of what you add. Then talk to neighbors to educate them. Reporting only as a last resort and only on truely horendous issues. (Which is the only issues LL will even look at anyway.)

~Jessy

I don't think that an fps in the high 20s for a second or two could be considered as "poor performance". I'm used to moving around quite satisfactorily with a 'normal' fps of around 20. Of course I concede that a lot of temp rezzers in a sim would cause it to have poor performance, but it would take quite a lot, or a lot of objects being rezzed. I've used up to a couple of dozen of them in the same sim without causing any noticeable lag.

Kitty:
I've found the sim's prim count in the Statistics bar (that's something else I've learned from you ), and I've never disagreed that, when a sim is getting full, temp rezzers are not the things to be using. I had a look in the sims that I use them in and all of them have less than 11k prims in use.

YOU are dropping into the high 20's. Others are on SL running at 10fps. Some even lower. So an 11% drop there is much more noticable.

You are hardly "low-end" at normally low 30's in FPS.

And through a lot of testing on temp-rezzers, I can tell you that ONE poorly scripted prim from ONE rezzer can quite significantly impact sim performance negatively.

Again, your rezzers, and the prims you are rezzing are probably not a problem. However, that does not, and can not, replace the need for caution for using them with any new items.

And for one more time: FPS means less in determining impact on a sim than Time Dilation, or even Script Time. Measuring both of these over several minutes to see the impact from the re-rezzing cycle.

~Jessy

I'll keep it simple and to the point. I have a temp rezzer. Do I use it? No. Why? For all the reasons listed here. I don't know how much of an effect it will have, if any, but it's more important to me to be a good neighbor than any reason I have for using one.

Maybe it is all a myth, but maybe not. It's something I can live without.

I typically average about 3.5 fps. Soemtimes SL is nice to me and I get 5. It often gets down to about 1.5 fps.
I would kill for 30 fps! lol

Now I understand why you spend so much time sitting in the hangout... too slow to do anything else! Seriously, thats realy a bad fps.

About temp rezzers I can be pretty short: they are just a another way to cheat the system. Temporary prims are useful, but using that system to rezz more prims then you are entitled to, is abuse of the system in my opinion. You pay for a certain amount of prims, don't use more then that. Want more? Buy more! (or rent more).
And to be clear: It is not Linden Labs you cheat, it is your fellow land owners/renters that you cheat. Period.

Then again, cheating seems to be a popular thing to do in SL, considering the amount of camping bots, traffic bots, and dishonest estate owners

Greetings, Marcel

I never understood why LL allows you to bypass your land prim allowance by using temp prims as it encourages people to use temp rezzers.

Why not simply make people who want to have bullets etc on their land leave some prims unused and have temporary prims count against your maximum allowed prims while they are in existence?
That would be fairer for everyone in terms of sim resources and wouldnt encourage temp rezzers (which create lag not only by having more prims in existence but also by the act of rezzing them)

The best way to save prims is to buy 1 prim furniture or very low prim furniture
I have seen some amazing 1 prim chairs and tables using sculpties.

Time dilation drops, consistently and repeatedly by 0.1-0.15 every time a neighbour's temp on rez roof prims recycle in my home sim.

Jessica:

In one post you said this:-

and in a later post you said this:-

But the only drop that I saw, that was associated with the rezzers, was in the client fps number, which is the number you referred to by saying both "Client-lag is immaterial to the discussion at hand" and "I, personally, do not think a 11% [client fps] loss is acceptable." The two don't fit together. Remember that there was no change in the server fps during, or soon after, each round of rezzing.

I think the server performance part of the discussion is an unrealistic objection, but the use of extra prims isn't, as it can impact on other land owners in a sim. Words like "cheating" and "stealing" to describe using them are nonsense though. Remember that people don't know the details that are being discussed here. I make and sell what I believe to be the best temp rezzer in SL, and I'm only just learning some of these details. I've learned things from this thread, and only a few weeks ago I learned that the 15000 prims cannot be exceeded - I'd always assumed that temp prims didn't count in the 15000. It's good to discuss things - that's how people learn, but it's not good to cast silly judgements.

Phil,
when you use a system to systematically use more prims then you are entitled to, it is cheating and in fact stealing as well. Wether you like it or not. Of course, just as using traffic-bots, it is allowed by LL to (ab)use a flaw in the system. The fact LL doens't (yet) act against it, doesn't mean it is right all of a sudden.

But, let me rephrase the cheating and stealing opinion a bit: Using a temp rezzer with the knowledge that you are using up more prims then you pay for, so you are using someone elses prim allowance, is cheating. Temp-rezz tools for sale, should have a notecard included to inform people about this as well. Which would pretty much render them useless though

As for server load: I don't have a clue in how much load a temp rezzer has on sim performance. The fact that it puts a load on the sim is quite obvious, sice each rezzing and derezzing action takes up resources, no matter wether an avatar or a rezzbox does the rezzing. How much resources it takes, I really don't know.

Have a nice weekend, Marcel

My neighbours driveway is often empty of cars during the day. Is it okay for me to park my car there everyday without asking her first? In fact, I think lots of the driveways round here are empty during the day, so maybe I could use them for all of my cars. It would only inconvenience my neighbours on the rare occasion that they actually want to use their driveway during the day and, if they did, they'd only have to knock on all the doors in the street to find out who's car was parked in their drive. If I'm not in when they call round then *shrugs*..

I'm not sure it would be described as 'cheating' or 'stealing' but it would definitely be ill mannered imho. The biggest problem is not really if I do it, but if everyone did it! Imagine if everyone in SL used temp rezzers for their furniture o.0

p.s. I only have one car but for this example I have imagined I have lots. A ferrari, a lamborghini, a nice E-type Jag.... *drools*



I have a lot of respect for your posts Phil. However this comment concerns me. As a content creator i think everyone needs to know exactly the implications on SL of what they are making and distributing. Always taking into account that someone who buys it doesn't know what they are doing and may potentially rez 100 of the things on a 512 plot, for example.

Client-lag IS immaterial as it is effected by more things than simply sim-performance. ISP connections, system specs, and preference settings being some the major factors. Client-lag and sim-performance go hand-in-hand though as sim-performance effects client-lag, but not vice versa.

So my comment that I found an 11% drop of FSP unnacceptable is my personal preference. If I was getting such a steep drop, I would be looking into whatever was causing it. Be that sim-performance, preferences, ISP, etc.

If, in that search, I found temp-rezzers of mine to be the cause, then I would remove them. Even if my FPS was in the high 20's (which is acceptable for most things in SL), I would not want to effect others who may have a lower end spec.

Server FPS is another animal all together. That is simply how well the server (sim) is talking to the database. If that fluctuates, then LL has some serious problems. You should never see this move more than 1-2 at any time, and then, not often.

All of it does fit together, you just have to look at how it does. There is very little in SL that doesn't effect other things.



Server performance is a very realistic objection. This is what griefers misuse to cause grief with their scripted self-replicating prims (ie, the TMNT episodes). It is even more prevailant with those of us simply living in SL, as we impact our neighbors on a daily basis, not just the hour or so until LL kicks the griefers off the Grid.

Understanding how what we do effects ourselves, others, and the serves and Grid as a whole is something every Resident should strive to understand. We can not prevent everything, but we can restrict ourselves when it comes to usage of things that we do not really need to use, and to limit the adverse effects. Doing such is a daily learning process. Residents far older than I can tell you that they still learn things about SL here and there.

The "cheating" and "stealing" of prims that people mentioned are not aimed at you. They are aimed at those that use rezzers to make their temp-prims permanent by re-rezzing them constantly. While possible, this is NOT what they are intended for (or shouldn't be). Re-rezzing an object IS cheating the system, and IS stealing from somewhere (unless, of course, you have that many free prims on your plot, in which case there's no need to use the script resources to continually re-rez them).

The "best" temp-rezzer is one used by it's owner responsibly. Even the best can be misused.

~Jessy

Fact:

Daryth Kennedy uses a holodisplay for her Dragon avatars in Cathedral. Every time someone rezzes another Dragon (the pieces are rezzed temp in one go), the sim chokes for a minute, sometimes longer, sometimes disconnecting everyone in the sim. We're not talking thousands of prims, either, only hundreds. This is not uncommon with temp rezzers in other sims I have seen. Quite a few places are starting to ban people using them if they remotely affect sim performance, which they usually do.

I've seen these temp rezzers practically bring a SIM to it's knees. Just yesterday a friend of mine had a Linden return his rezzer (a well known content creator's version) with the explanation it was causing too much of a strain on the server. From my own personal experience, when he had the rezzer running, SIM FPS would drop from 45 to down in the teens during every refresh cycle of the rezzer. Time dilation numbers would also be cut in half with the rezzer in use, and the sim became nearly impossible to move around in, much less do anything else. With the rezzer turned off, performace always returned to normal. Perhaps a rare worst case scenario, but these things can and do have an adverse effect on SIM performance.

Marcel:

The point I was making about "cheating" and "stealing" is that an action is only morally cheating or stealing if the person doing it believes it to be cheating or stealing. If you think that something is cheating, then for you it is cheating if you do it - in your heart you are cheating, regardless of whether or not it is cheating. You're second parapgraph agreed with my point (I think ). People who use temp rezzers simply think that they are a normal part of SL, so in their hearts they neither cheating nor stealing.


Min:

Using your neighbour's drive to park your cars would be wrong, of course, unless you have permission. Using your SL neighbour's land to park your stuff would be equally wrong, unless you have permission. But we are not discussing the use of land that actually exists. We are discussing things that don't exist, and that the neighbours don't have - prim potential. In a sim, there is a pool of prim potential. Some is used and some isn't, so the free potential can be seen as a pool of free prims. Which of the the free prims does the neighbour own? They don't exist - they are only potential. If someone uses some as temp prims, which neighbour can say that those particular ones are his/hers?

I don't disagree that, when the sim's 15000 potential is getting near to being used up, temp rezzers that take a parcel over it's normal prim limit need to be removed or turned off. If temp rezzers are used, and actually prevent other land owners from using their alloted potantial, then it would be wrong. I don't disagree with that. But I can't agree that it's wrong to use temp rezzers to take a parcel over it's normal prim limit, when there are thousands of free prims (potential) in the sim.

I'm sorry that the way I came to make a temp rezzer is concerning for you, Min. Until these discussions, I was just like any other user of them - they work great, and they are fine with LL. As a result of these discussion, I'll add the information about sim limits to the documentation and info notecards.

Incidentally, I don't see any threads about the effect on other people of female hair that uses hundreds of prims, but they can have a much more significant performance effect on people than temp rezzers have

Talarus & Garrett:

I can only repeat that, from my personal experience of using them for many months, they have had no noticeable effect on lag, and I've used dozens in the same sim. I can happen, yes, but I don't believe that it's the norm.

[added]
As Jessica said - The "best" temp-rezzer is one used by it's owner responsibly. Even the best can be misused.

To use this RL example:
You are also using something that doesn't exist - unused space (same as prim potential in SL). In the example, the neighbor has the space, but is not using it. You say you know that's wrong. So why is using the prim allotment that your SL neighbor isn't using any different?

Either it's wrong or it's not.



The "I didn't know, so I'm not guilty." idea works to a point. However, then it is a moral judgement of those who make rezzers. To protect children from fire, we take it from them until they understand the dangers. Alchol is not sold to those under the age of 21. Cigarettes are not sold to those under 18. Driver's license are not issued until the person is 16 AND passes a written and functional test (US laws. Other countries may vary).

In SL, all we can do is explain to those that will listen to us.

I say the morality lies with the seller of the rezzer to include a notecard detailing warnings of what to watch for, and a few specific things to avoid. That people think misusing something to cheat the system is a "normal" part of society simply shows that the "society" needs to improve, not continue to follow the bad examples.



There have been many. There are old prim-hairs that are hundreds of tiems worse than what you see today. However, a difference here is that rendering of prim attachments is solely a client-side issue. Effects would depend on where you are, what is going on, how many avatars are there, etc.

Most know that ANY avatar causes a lag spike at rendering. Once complete, it is done. At large events (music concerts for example) people do take off the prim hair. It is a common thing to see an announcement at an event for people to please take off all unneeded scripted objects, bling, etc to help lower lag.

As I said above, there are many factors that effect others within SL. Learning what does what is growing. Using that knowledge is maturity.

~Jessy

The difference is that someone is paying for those prims, whether they actually choose to use them or not is entirely up to them.

If there's a Linden road on your sim then you can argue that it's different, but in all other cases someone is paying for the prims you're using. Whether you think they can be put to better use is entirely irrelevant, they're not yours.

---

Let's say you rent on a private sim and the sim owner notices that most of his/her tenants are only using 3/4 of their prim allotment. Two tenants have been nagging for more prims for a while now, so the sim owner gets the bright idea to tweak the region object bonus factor to give those two tenants the prims they want (and collect some extra money for them).

A few days pass and noone has complained yet, the scheme is working perfectly. Then one day you decide that it's time that you stop putting off decorating your house and you start rezzing furniture, except after the first few pieces you get "sim is full".

Upon contacting the sim owner he explains everything and gives you the whole "free prim potentional that belongs to noone" story. Are you really going to nod along and agree that it was the right thing for the sim owner to decide that your free prims would be better off being used by your neighbours than you? Most likely, you'd just feel cheated.

I pay my fees to LL for a certain amount of prim space, 1838 to be exact. If I only have 1506 prims on my land then the other 332 are not anyone else's to use but mine. I really don't believe there can be any doubt about that as I'm the one who's paying for the land and they are directly linked to my plot of land.

If I want to rez a 332 sculpture on my front lawn then I should be able to do that because I PAY to be able to do that. I leave that free prim space precisely so I can build on my land without worrying about hitting my limit.

A whole region has 24 prim spaces that are not directly allocated to a plot of land (if my calcs are correct). If anything can be said to be a pool of free prims available for all of the land owners to use then that's it. Just 24.

(and really, those 24 prims are just there so we can run around throwing temporarily rezzed custard pies at each other)

That's not entirely accurate though.

You probably tried:
117 prims/512m² = 117 * 128 = 14976/sim or 24 prims unaccounted for.

That's only for a sim that contains exactly 128 512m² plots though, and the real cause is the rounding down of prim allotment/parcel (15000 / 128 = 117.1875 prims/512m² = 117 useful prims/512m²)

If you had a sim that contained only 8192m² plots (1/8th of a sim):
1875 prims/8192m² = 1875 * 8 = 15000/sim with all prims usable

Given the odd sized parcels on most mainland sims, there will be some stray prims but it's not a fixed number.